


Three Sins

by Edonohana



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fullmetal Alchemist 2003/Brotherhood Fusion, Horror, Multi, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 07:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17402591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: We fled. The homunculi followed.





	Three Sins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DianaSolaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/gifts).



When we reached Henry’s room, he’d already drawn the circle. I recognized it immediately. We all did.

“Henry, human transmutation is impossible! We _know_ that. And even if you could bring back Bunny, it wouldn’t fix… this.” Camilla waved her hand in a sweeping gesture, as if she held a cloth and all of us, herself included, were the spilled milk.

“Of course I know that,” Henry replied brusquely, then toned down his dismissiveness. He only did that for Camilla. And Julian, once. “I have no intention of resurrecting Bunny. Even if I believed it would work, I wouldn’t inflict him on you _again_. No. My focus will be on the farmer.”

I too had forgotten the name of the man who’d been ripped to pieces in that alchemical ritual which no doubt would have killed me instead had I been the one to stumble upon it unawares. As they’d left me out, I bore no guilt from the farmer’s death beyond the everyday crime of not caring about a fellow human being. 

But I had participated in the second murder, when we’d tried to bring back the farmer (Henry had consulted a paper to speak his name), and had pushed a screaming Bunny into the nest of reaching arms. With that guilt staining me and nothing to show for it but a ghastly jumble of organs and bones, I might as well have participated in the first ritual, the one which had brought beauty as well as horror, and beheld the brief ruby glimmer of the Philosopher’s Stone.

“If you know you can’t bring him back, then what’s the—” Camilla’s gaze strayed to Charles, slumped drunk and dull-eyed in the corner. With true horror in her voice, she said, “Henry, no!”

“I won’t hurt him. That would hurt _you_." Henry touched her hair, and the shadow of his hand transmuted it from gold to bronze. “I’m giving the police a murderer. And I’m giving you a story. Say I did everything. They’ll see the proof.”

He knelt by the circle and pressed both his palms to it before any of us could stop him. Though in truth, Charles showed no interest in doing so, Francis was paralyzed with fear, and I have never managed to act when any good could have come of it. Only Camilla might have tried, but she was taken by surprise. 

The arms reached out of nothingness. The arms were made of nothingness. They were black and terrible, long as serpents and with soft grasping hands like a baby’s, and they unmade him. 

Francis gave a strangled cry. Charles jumped up and staggered to the bathroom. Camilla turned aside, away from Henry and from all of us. And I did what I have always done: nothing.

 

I recited the script that Henry had given his life to write for us: Bunny and the farmer (none of us could recall his name) had been the victims of Henry’s experimentation with forbidden alchemy, and we’d all found out when he’d summoned us to hear his confession before, he said, he’d bring them both back. Before we could stop him, he’d tried. And then that… that _thing_ which made Charles and two of the three police officers sick was all that was left. 

It wasn’t, of course. But none of us had known that then, not even (I believe, I hope) Henry. Still, it was enough for the police to close their case, and give us leave to go our separate ways. 

We fled. The homunculi followed.

There are three of them. Three sins for three works of forbidden alchemy. But somehow they haunt all four of us, or so I gather from what little communication we have. (Do they haunt Julian as well? I do not know. He has retired, they say, and does not reply to my letters.) 

One is Gluttony, who appears as a Bunny bloated to monstrous proportions. He rifles through my cupboards and casually tosses my books aside as he eats my food and drinks my liquor. Occasionally, he snatches my meals before I’ve eaten more than a bite or two and devours them while I watch. But not too often. Not enough to starve me. Only enough to make me fear to eat or drink.

Pride appears as Henry, proper and cool in a dark English suit. He never speaks, lacking a mouth, but comes to me often, sitting at the foot of my bed when I try to sleep or standing in the audience when I try to teach. I know the minute variations of his habitually blank expression well enough to interpret his meaning, even with half his head gone. _I gave you everything,_ he says. _I gave you my life. Why didn’t you do something better with it?_

The last and worst is Envy. I see him every time I look into a reflective surface. He wears my face, echoes my words, mimics my actions. As I was on the outside looking in, greedy for what I could never truly have and angry at those who had what I lacked, so he is on the inside looking out at me. His eyes are California glass, bright and polished panes over bottomless pits. He can never be satisfied. And he will be with me until the day I die. I can only hope that he will not follow me beyond.


End file.
